Kana Koumoto
Kana Koumoto (河本・カナ?, Kōmoto Kana), or Kana-bun (カナ-ぶん) to her friends, is the protagonist of season three, FLCL Alternative. Profile Kana Koumoto, age 17, is the main character of the third season, FLCL Alternative. She spends her days hanging out with her friends, Mossan, Hijiri and Pets. They had lived unremarkable lives throughout high school, until the day a strange mech fell out of the sky, along with a mysterious woman named Haruko. Her plans for Kana and her friends involve the force known as Atomsk. Appearance Kana has short, brown hair worn in a bob cut and round brown eyes. She can typically be seen in her school attire of a blue jacket and skirt, a yellow vest, white undershirt and loosely worn red tie. She also wears brown loafers that she acknowledges are worn-out, a small, pink backpack for school, and a white apron during work. She colors her nails green, matching a gold clip with a green flower worn in the hair by her left temple. In flashbacks of her early childhood, Kana has chubby cheeks that lessen the sharpness of her chin and jawline, pink blush spots beneath the eyes, and lacks eyebrows. Her skin is paler and her hair is closer to a very light brown. She wears her hair in roughly the same style, with the exception of letting her shorter bangs cover her forehead. Her eyes are the only feature that is consistent, looking much larger on her younger self's face as a result. She wears a pink backpack, light-pink sweatshirt, a pleated champagne skirt, light-brown calf-high socks, and brown shoes. In a photo of her and Pets in their later childhood years, Kana's face is less round and her hair is closer to its present appearance, though still somewhat curlier at the ends. The pink blush circles became reddish blush patches, her hair clip is silver with a red flower, and they are both wearing white physical education uniforms with blue trim and stripes. When using her full N.O. power, Kana's hair becomes synonymous with a flame, turning orange-red and defying gravity to move like fire. It also grows in length as she gives her speech until it could reach down to her hips. The rest of her body has a thin rainbow aura surrounding it, making her clothes billow and float a little as well. This transformation does not stick after she returns to her normal life. Personality Compared to the other protagonists, Kana is more enthusiastic and energetic, but she displays an unwillingness to become an adult. Her monologue in Flying Memory shows she believes all her days unremarkable and everything around her will always be the same, but she is content with it. She even acknowledges contributing to this sameness by wearing worn-out loafers. She spends those uneventful days with her three close friends, gossiping, shopping, and living a generally relaxed life. She's kind to customers at work and doesn't let playful teasing or mistakes bother her. When faced with danger, however, she freezes up, cries without even noticing, and is often unaware of danger. She comes off as defenseless towards everything that morphs from her N.O. connection as a result. She manages to drive very well while Haruko is fighting the second robot, but still needed to be hit out of her state of shock beforehand. She is very hyper-emotional and has a hard time controlling herself. She is infatuated with wanting to become mature, but she hasn't mentally matured to the level she aspires to be at yet, which drives most of her emotional meltdowns. Kana cared an exorbitant amount for Hijiri's relationship, seeing her nonchalant way of handling it as wrong. She projects her idea of how to handle the turmoil onto her friend, resulting in quarrels about her self-insertion into the relationship. When Mossan is overworking herself on a fashion show and part-time job, Kana pushes Haruko and her friends to spend a night doing construction work so she can rest. However, Mossan confronts her because she dislikes others putting in work on her dream without asking. Despite this, she allows Kana to help with the fashion show and her assistance gets Mossan noticed in the contest. Unlike most of her friends, Kana lacks goals and doesn't know what she wants to do in life. This plays a huge part into why she constantly inserts herself into the business of others that she cares for. This reaches a tipping point in episode 5 when Kana goes searching for Pets after she ran away form home, discovers from her mother that she's been lying to Kana throughout their whole friendship, and decides to take it upon herself to "fix" Pets' home life. She finds Pets trapped inside the Terminal Core's wires and starts questioning why she lied so much, which causes Pets to start lashing out. She perceives Kana as rude, nosy, and recognizes that her "fixing" their lives is unwelcome even to their other friends. After calling her many names, including several variations of selfish, and venting relentlessly, she chooses to run away after Kana saves her. She has a certain confused affection for Sasaki that she realizes deep down, but denies it to no end to others and becomes flustered any time he attempts to talk to her. Haruko's attempt at manipulation through him makes Kana surpass her usual immaturity, allowing her to deny a kiss that would have been forced and admit to him that she's "not ready" the next day. Kana also has a deep love for all of her friends, especially Pets, who was her first friend. Ever since she was a child, Kana has always been insecure about what people think of her, which reveals that Kana suffers from low-self esteem and depression. This may be due to a brief snapshot showing her alone in a hospital with an I.V. drip in her arm as a child. She lets out her true feelings in the final episode when Haruko convinces her not to hold back. Powers After a kick to the head from Haruko, an N.O. channel she already suspected was activated in Kana's head, sprouting a small, pink flower. With a great deal of pulling, Haruko was able to retrieve the guitar that was manifesting. Haruko also manages to knock a food van out of her N.O. channel during episode 2's robot fight, and Kana is shown to be incredibly skillful at driving it under pressure, despite not yet obtaining a driver’s license. Although she is easily affected by emotions, Haruko's manipulation tends to fail on Kana. Her N.O. channel rarely produces anything, often only giving extreme headaches or requiring force to fully transport things. However, robots seem to be attracted to her N.O. activity regardless. When her N.O. finally does activate in full as a result of feelings related to Pets' choices and harsh words, Kana uses it to suck up the Terminal Core entirely, saving herself and Pets, and possibly even the town as a whole. Kana's N.O. channel is so powerful that when fully unleashed in the final episode that it created a space-time rip known as the Naked Focal Point, which sucked in the Medical Mechanica iron that threatened her city. It also warped Haruko directly to Mars, created a pink atmosphere on Earth, and left behind a strange blue ball resembling a planet right next to Earth. The creation of the Naked Focal Point also resulted in a bright explosion enveloping Kana's city, contributing to forcing Haruko into the Focal Point and possibly other effects to the environment. Relations Haruko Haruhara Haruko is interested in Kana's N.O. channel capabilities because she is on a mission to stop Medical Mechanica once and for all. Kana respects and listens Haruko, despite Haruko harming her at times. Kana often comes to Haruko for help, with Haruko usually giving her small pieces of advice so she can learn how to deal with her problems. However, Haruko has been equally as sly towards her as she has been nice, purposely messing with Kana's emotions in order to trigger her N.O. channel. Haruko finally gets what she wants from Kana in the end, which is to get Kana to fully open up about her feelings so that she can suck up the Medical Mechanica iron. This plan succeeds, but also backfires on Haruko, as she ends up being sent to Mars by Kana's Naked Focal Point. Tomomi "Pets" Hetada Kana really loves Pets. They spend every day together, along with their other friends, and never seem to fight. Pets was her first ever childhood friend, but there is a lot about Pets that Kana did not know, including how fed up Pets was becoming with Kana's quirks. Kana hears from Aida that Pets' family is rich and leaving for Mars due to Earth becoming uninhabitable, something confirmed by a visit to her family home. Kana had never been there before and realizes that Pets even lied about her hatred of being in pictures. She also learns that Pets' father is a government official who is extremely strict and her mother tries to trap Kana in the house while Pets is missing because she believed Kana was hiding her. Kana eventually finds Pets and Pets tells her she hates how nosy she is and the way she tries to help without ever asking. Pets makes the decision to leave while Kana is unconscious after using her N.O. to rescue the other girl. In the end, Kana comes to accept Pets leaving for Mars, as well as her own flaws, but is still ultimately hurt by the decision. Hijiri Yajima Kana really looks up to Hijiri, mainly because Hijiri appeared to be the most mature of their group of friends. She dates older men, dresses stylishly, looks much older than she is, and doesn't take things like relationships seriously. However, Hijiri was merely pretending to be mature. Kana wants nothing more than Hijiri to be happy, but also wanted Hijiri and her boyfriend to remain together, as Kana has an infatuation with maturity due to her own immaturity. She first learns that sometimes her actions are unwelcome through her failure to "fix" Hijiri's relationship behind her back and the resulting confrontation. Hijiri learns from her breakup that she should enjoy being the age she is instead of trying to act older. Man "Mossan" Motoyama Mossan is Kana's tough friend. She is a hard worker and has big dreams, including being an artist and fashion designer. Kana looks up to Mossan's talent because she doesn't have a talent of her own, which is why Kana wants to see Mossan accomplish her goals and be happy. She attempts to help her when she realizes she is getting overworked by her part-time job, fashion dream, and school, recruiting their friends and Haruko to do her construction work for her at night while she rests. She is confronted by an angry Mossan, however, and learns that part of her dream is doing all these things on her own. Even so, she lets Kana help her with a fashion show she's been designing a dress for. They get the attention of the fashion agencies in the audience as a result of their work, as well as help from Haruko and Dennis. Mon Sasaki Kana is Sasaki's biggest supporter. She goes to every basketball game to spectate his managerial work and can also be found at practices or coincidentally walking along their jogging route on occasion. She does this while claiming not to like him in any way, but can't take her eyes off him during class or stop blushing when he's brought up by others. Sasaki is aware of the attention and seems to share the affection, though he is less devoted to involving himself in her life. When Haruko starts to romance him to affect Kana's N.O., he doesn't outright refuse her uncomfortable sexual behavior and creates a faux-love triangle as a result. Kana is walking the halls during this period of time and notices Sasaki trying to shoot baskets in the gym, walking in to toss the ball back when he misses. They start a meaningful conversation about Sasaki's medical condition, with Kana's friends and Haruko listening in. Haruko finds herself frustrated with the lack of progress her manipulation is doing and hits Kana with a basketball, making her fall on top of Sasaki in a rather sexual position. The two blush and she leans in for a kiss, but stops when she begins to feel she "lost that spark" which her N.O. may have emphasized. She finds Sasaki the next day and apologizes, admitting she doesn't feel ready to take that step yet. She overall matures regarding talking about him and dealing with her feelings for him from that point onward. Gallery FLCL Alternative poster.jpeg FLCLAltCap4.jpg|Kana listens to The Pillows KanaSmiling.jpg FLCLAltEp1Cap2.png FLCL-Progressive-120.jpg FLCLAltEp1Cap3.png FLCLAltEp1Cap6.png FLCLAltEp1Cap7.png FLCLAltEp1Cap8.png FLCLAltEp1Cap9.png FlyingMemory002.jpg FLCL Alternative - 01 - Large 19.jpg FLCLAltEp1Cap10.png FLCLAltEp1Cap12.png FLCLAltEp1Cap14.png GrownUpWannabe004.png AltPhotoshoot.png GrownUpWannabe003.png GrownUpWannabe006.jpg MechFight.png MechFight3.png Kana002.png MechFight1.png GrownUpWannabe001.png FLCLAltEp3Cap2.png FLCLAltEp3Cap8.png FLCLAltEp3Cap1.jpg FLCLAltEp3Cap3.jpg FLCLAltEp4Cap6.jpg FLCLAltEp3Cap4.jpg FLCLAltEp3Cap7.png Pit-A-PatTitle.png Screenshot_2018-09-24-00-28-13.png Screenshot_2018-09-24-00-29-29.png FLCLAltEp4Cap5.jpg FLCLAltEp4Cap2.jpg FLCLAltEp4Cap1.jpg KanaReaction.png Pit-A-Pat002.png SIO1.png|Kana's hair clip inspiration FLCLAltCap2.png ShakeItOff002.png ShakeItOff003.jpg ShakeItOff005.png FLCLAltCap5.png SIO4.png FLCLAltCap6.jpg FLCLAltEp6Cap1.jpg FLCLAltEp6Cap7.png FLCLAltEp6Cap8.png FLCLAltEp6Cap9.png FLCLAltEp6Cap10.png FullFlat001.png FullFlat002.png FullFlat003.png FullFlat004.png Kana-cut-out.png Trivia *After unleashing the full power of her N.O. in the final episode, Kana's appearance changes to resemble Nono from Diebuster. *In episode 5, a girl wearing a familiar flower hair clip is emphasized in Kana's childhood flashback, suggesting this stranger was part of the inspiration for her future signature hairstyle. Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Alternative Category:Principal Characters